Battle over French labor law escalates / Government defiant amid new threats of nationwide rallies

Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times

Published 4:00 am, Monday, March 20, 2006

Photo: CHRISTOPHE ENA

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French Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin before a meeting with university presidents in Paris, France, Friday, March 17, 2006. Following violent student protests this week in Paris, Villepin appealed for calm before the students' final exam period. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) less

French Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin before a meeting with university presidents in Paris, France, Friday, March 17, 2006. Following violent student protests this week in Paris, Villepin appealed for ... more

Photo: CHRISTOPHE ENA

Battle over French labor law escalates / Government defiant amid new threats of nationwide rallies

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2006-03-20 04:00:00 PDT Paris -- A political clash over a new labor law escalated Sunday as unions and students threatened new nationwide protests and the government rejected demands to withdraw the law.

Both sides sounded defiant a day after an estimated 500,000 people took part in occasionally violent marches around France to protest the measure, which would enable employers to fire workers under 26 without cause during their first two years on the job.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has staked his reputation on the measure to loosen labor protections. Business groups and many political leaders say France's broad labor protections are to blame for high youth unemployment.

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"I am convinced that it will work, that it will create new jobs," Villepin said of the law in an interview with a youth-oriented magazine Sunday.

While he insisted that he will not relent, Villepin said he would consider improvements to respond to everyone's concerns.

In response, leaders of the center-left opposition warned that official intransigence could worsen street clashes that resulted in 52 minor injuries and 167 arrests Saturday night.

"What's the use of waiting for the next protest?" demanded Francois Hollande, leader of the Socialist party. "The measure of wisdom and responsibility is to withdraw the (law) and open negotiations."

Leaders of unions and student groups planned to meet today to consider calling a general strike for Thursday if the government does not scuttle the law, which has been approved by the legislature but not implemented. On Saturday, the groups gave the government 48 hours to back down. In past years, general strikes have brought the country to a near standstill.

Coming four months after France's worst urban riots in recent history, the crisis is crucial for Villepin's increasingly fragile government. By contrast to the largely spontaneous and anarchic riots by youths of immigrant descent, protests by France's powerful labor unions are a periodic ritual; they are often quickly defused by compromise.

But there is only a year left until presidential elections, and political parties are torn by disarray across the spectrum, so the unrest could destabilize the lame-duck administration of President Jacques Chirac.

Villepin hopes to succeed Chirac, his mentor, but he has never held elective office. A former foreign minister, he is relatively untested on the domestic front. The prime minister sees the new law, known by the French initials CPE, as a way of making his mark by tackling stubborn youth unemployment that reaches 50 percent in working-class immigrant neighborhoods and was a contributing factor in last year's riots.

Displaying his penchant for taking risks, the hard-charging and eloquent Villepin thinks he will bolster his leadership credentials if he stands firm, according to analysts.

His popularity has suffered in recent weeks, however. While 60 percent of respondents described him as courageous in a poll published by the Parisien newspaper, only 35 percent judged him as being up to the challenge of events.

Giving employers flexibility in dismissing young workers during a two-year trial period may seem modest by the standards of other countries. But the French jealously guard a costly benefit system that makes firing workers extremely difficult. Employers say those benefits discourage hiring and job creation.

The dispute has galvanized aggressively leftist student unions, which tend to be dominated by middle- and upper-class young people who are not the primary victims of unemployment. Marches, campus takeovers and skirmishes with riot police have shut down dozens of universities in past weeks. About a thousand students held a counter-demonstration at Paris City Hall on Sunday demanding that protesters end blockades and allow them to study and attend classes.

But the prevailing tone was confrontational.

"We've got to continue our mobilization," said Jean-Claude Mailly, secretary general of the Force Ouvriere Union, quoted by wire services. "The prime minister is like a pyromaniac who has set fire to the valley and then withdraws to the hill to watch."

Polls published Sunday indicated that almost three out of four respondents want the labor law modified or withdrawn. The polls found that 71 percent fear "a profound social crisis that will gather force in the coming weeks."